Ok, so it's not strictly a howto, it's more a commentary on what i've done with a hope that it will help others.

Ever wondered how to disable those pesky default multimedia keys that windows has mapped to things like media player, outlook (or default mail app), etc... Well i finally sat down and figured it out.

I have a Logitech Elite keyboard and find that the bundled software (iTouch) is unsatisfactory because it only let's you redefine about half of the keys, and the one's it does let you redefine are not the one's i want to redefine. On my old computer after spending quite a while i managed to hack the registry settings for iTouch and get all the keys doing what i wanted them to, but I'm setting up my brand new computer now and decided i'd try going with just Girder instead.

So i installed Girder and set up the keys and commands i wanted, and it worked fine, except that for a few keys the windows default command would happen aswell as the Girder defined command.

For example: In girder i set the Media key to run a simple app i wrote to show/hide winamp. This worked, except that every time i pressed the media key windows media player would load.

After a lot of cursing and googling all i had managed to find was articles on how to use the Scancode mapping key in windows to disable the key entirely. Finally decided to pull out RegMon and see if i could figure out if there was something in the registry i could alter to stop it happening. It turns out there is. Explorer.exe was looking inHKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\AppKey\16\and finding"Association"=".cda"So the fact that windows media player was loading was just that it was the default application for .cda files.

I want Girder to do everything, so i deleted everything under the AppKey folder. All the buttons now behaved, except one. The search button insisted on loading an explorer search window. So out with RegMon again and found it was looking inHKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\AppKey\5\

This entry had never existed so i figured that it must be built into explorer that if AppKey\5\ is not defined then it loads the search page anyway.I tried adding the AppKey\5\ key. No bettter. So I added "ShellExecute"="calc.exe" to it and found that it would then load the calculator and not the search page.

Now all i needed was for it to do nothing, but a blank string in ShellExecute didn't work, it still loaded search, but i found that putting something in the ShellExecute value that wan't the name of an exe file that existed worked."ShellExecute"="cal.exe"or if you're worried that one day you'll install a program with a cal.exe then"ShellExecute"="a"

There you have it. It's a bit of fiddling, but it can be done.

Since discovering the AppKey registry key i've found this article on the microsoft site. It seems the subkey numbers are constants defined in Winuser.h.I also found this article which might help in discovering which key is assigned to which number, but to be sure i think you'd really need to use RegMon.

I hope this info is useful for other Girder and HIP users. I'm sure there will be slight differences with different keyboards so it would be good if other people could post their experiences.

Actually you have helped me nate. I've got a logitech elite keyboard too and ive always been frustrated about how you can only map half the keys. Why do they do that? As soon as you mentioned the registry I slapped my forehead and went and had a look and with a bit of fiddling I have now re-mapped those pesky media keys to what i want thanks mate! I mean nate.

In one of those strange coincidences in life, we came to the same discovery a couple of days ago about the APPCOMMAND key associations and how to get around them, but hadn't gotten around to sorting out how to get rid of the Search window. Thanks for saving us time on it!

This workaround works the same for the BTC9019URF as is does for your Logitech.

Just a quick update on this. There are 3 keys i havn't been able to disable. Volume Up, Volume Down, and Mute.

If someone does discover how to disable these then i'd be interested to know how it's done. Explorer doesn't seem to check any registry settings before altering the volume.I'd imagine altering the scancode mapping in windows would be a workaround, but it would be good if there's a "proper" way to tell explorer.exe not to do anything when they're pressed.

It doesn't really worry me because i'll just leave them as they are and set Girder to just Display the Volume rather than altering it. I just thought that it would be nice to have a complete solution available to people.

This is slightly off topic, but I have a rare mini infrared keyboard+mousestick controller that is not supported by the vendor anymore .. it has the multimedia keys at the top as well .. it is a "Computer Filand FTRIR9703" and the drivers and software date back to circa 1998

How do I enable these multimedia keys to load up DigitalWatch, etc? Can I use the standard 102 keyboard driver?

I would just like to add that there is a nifty freeware application called keytweak that has a teach mode ie. You hit the key you want to remap, the program shows you if its picked up a scancode then you hit the key you want to remap to, it then implements these changes using the "scancode map" registry key. It has remapping for multimedia keys but these dont always work, depending on your keyboard type

as you can see the browser commands are the ones you have found, the only thing they only owerwite the explorer keys, ie activated on desctop only, they dont owerwite the key action on explorer. still looking have fun, ill make an app one i done tiwth this, so keep me posted.

PS. keytweak is okey, but it would help if the dude post his source, so it can be made some thing more than a little app >.< little atm catch

Permanently disabling or re-assigning keys is fine but may create problems with software that use (or depend on) these commands now or in the future. also these changes re quire a re-boot and so you cannot change them "on the fly".

That is why I added the low-level key routines to Hip which can usually capture these commands BEFORE they are sent on the keyboard handler so you can either disable them or re-assign them.

The list of available commands is no where as complete as the list posted by max.barrass, but I have included ALL of the keys you would normally see on a keyboard these days.

i have to say, was so pleased with this information. you have no idea how much searching i had to do and could not find the information i wanted. i suppose the problem was, i was looking for 'hotkey' rather than 'multimedia' keys. either way, i have an old decrepid keyboard that's been through soda spills (pretty bad) and ended up being soaked in the tub overnight. well, about 2-3 years later, i LOVE my keyboard and they don't make it anymore, but regular keys are beginning to trigger media keys and their normal function at the same time. using your registry information i've been able to disable the ones windows added in, allowing me the ability to have control over which hotkeys i keep enabled. as of right now, my space bar triggers the 'my computer' button, and the down arrow triggers the calculator button. more to come i'm sure.

either way, i was so enlightened when i found your post and fixed it, i had to register just to say thanks. i'm sure there are other people who have found this post through searches as well that didn't bother registering to thank you, so i wanted you to know your efforts weren't in vain. i certainly appreciated it whole heartedly.

That sounds really good. I was really annoyed with the default multimedia keys provided by windows, but had no idea how to disable them. Your invention really helped me out to solve this issue. It was little difficult to do the steps, but yet effective.